Chicks HATCHING!!

hubba hubba!! I didn't cook the eggs I set 3 weeks ago! 3 have hatched so far. 2 cochins (1 is a golden laced and already has gold on her), and 1 Americauna from the prettiest bluegreen egg! (now watch..all three of these will be boys )

There are 36 other eggs in there..most are so dark I can't see into them, so I've no clue if they're going to hatch. They're not actually due to hatch until tomorrow night, so these three were a surprise. VERY fast out of hte shell, too. first hole in the shell to the "running around peeping like mad" took 3 hours. :shock:

oops! there goes my timer. Need to change the water on the fleece I'm washing. Back in a bit!!

Hooray for hatching chickies!

:bouncy:

and now 3 marans pipped and trying to get out. All these from the same order of eggs..18 from that person. I kind of wonder about the dozen marans from the 2nd person now. BUT all I can do is wait and see The 2nd batch of eggs had been missing for a few days in the mail. So their chances of hatching were slim

ah well. ehhe. When I open the incubator to see what's going on, the first three start peeping loudly and crowd over - looking at me like: GET US OUT OF HERE!! NOW!!!

I'll wait until tonight to move them into the brooder. Their chirping gives the other eggs an urge to hatch I think.

I love hatching chicks :mbounce:

Congrats on your chickeys, I really love chicks, ours are hatching now to, we have around 20 chicks so far, we started hatching yesterday.
And we also got our broilers (Cornish cross) today so our brooders are full
Hope you have lots of chicks.

so cool <br /><br />__________ Thu Apr 01, 2010 8:54 pm __________<br /><br />so cool

:bouncy:

Bunny-Wan Kenobi is still trying to convince me to let him buy a chick from the feed store ("I have enough money, Mom..."). I try to remind him that we are moving, and that we still have to get the bunnies settled into their new locale, and get my uncle accustomed to raising rabbits! Maybe we can try chickens another time. LOL

So far we have 2 cochins, 1 EE from a lovely blue/green egg, 1 Jersey Giant, and 10 marans hatched. all the marans are cuckoo variety, and at least 4 are males..the rest are still too wet or sticky to see if they have a big white blotch on the head or not. (white blotch means male)

I went up to check on the chickies and WHAT do I see but a poor blind little mama-san clone wandering around...poor little baby He was starting to cool off, so it's a good thing i went up when I did. He/she is all safe back in the nest...all snug and warm again

It's raining here now...storms later tonight, they say.<br /><br />__________ Sat Apr 03, 2010 11:05 am __________<br /><br />I think we're done hatching with 16 chicks. MAYBE 2 more, but probably not. Last one to hatch was a black copper marans, and well...I've gone and won an auction for more BCmarans eggs :roll: Can't have just ONE, you know. She'll feel out of place! I'll probably end up buying cuckoo marans pullet chicks somewhere. Having only 3 or 4 females ain't gonna cut it! (although the freezer will be full of lovely tender chickens again )

is 16/39 a good hatch rate?
that is pretty cool .

well, no...75% of mailed eggs would be a decent hatch...so...that's really 16 hatched from 28 purchased on Ebay. I only spent $5.00 for the dozen local, of which NONE were fertile I'd never met the lady before, so either her rooster is shooting blanks, or she sold me REALLY old eggs. chalk it up to experience

but It's all good. We'll have roosters to eat (apparently lots of them) and might have a couple of good ones for breeding out of the bunch. And now I have more eggs coming and maybe the sex change fairy will strike..who knows? The chicks are in the rabbit room...maybe she'll get bored with the kits and take a fling at the chickies!!<br /><br />__________ Sun Apr 04, 2010 7:18 am __________<br /><br />bummer The little one that hatched yesterday, and was doing pretty well after a day of being on her own (and the onlyBlack Copper Marans) died. Her feathering was not quite right somehow...it never fluffed up and she was sort of semi-naked looking. Poor little critter.

Ah well. Everyone else is looking happy and healthy and energetic this morning

Too bad about the Black Copper Marans but it does sound like something was not quite right with her.

Yippee for the others! Baby chicks for Easter morning! What could be nicer?

Now I have to clean the incubator in preparation for the next batch. I hate this part....the unhatched eggs...what to do with them...if I toss them down the garbage disposal they may be rotten and the stench will be horrendous...but I hate just tossing them outside.

I once cleared out the unhatched eggs from under a broody after she'd given up and took her 4 chicks out to learn about the world. One of the eggs exploded all over everything whenI picked it up. :help: that was horrible

Wear rubber gloves and put the container for the eggs inside the incubator while you work, in case of explosions. Put a clothespin on your nose. Don't jar anything! Bury the eggs in a garden bed that you will not be digging up anytime soon. They will break down. I usually give them a tap with the shovel before filling the hole in order to speed up the process.

Well...too late to go with Maggie's suggestions. Fortunately, everything was fine. The RIRs were totally clear...just yolk and whites. On the others, 2 had just yolk/white, the other 4 had formed chicks. I suspect I had the humidity too high. The double yolker had 1 embryo that had tried to live, but...jeeez....what breeder would send a humongous obvious double yolker in a shipment to a paying customer? that's just silly. (and what hatcher would try to SET the thing...i'm an idiot..just you just never know!)

I STOPPED myself from bidding on another set of eggs. I have this incubator filled now when they all get here. If I'd gotten more eggs, I'd either have to set up my second bigger bator (and I'm not all that sure where the door for it is) or I'd have to have Mike bring home the one I can use from work...it's a scientific thing that they use for cultures. BIG mother, a .1 degree variable from top to bottom, with fans, with thermometers and hygrometers, and a glass inner door. I can set 12 dozen eggs in it.....sigh. Or 6 dozen eggs, and the bottom half for the hatching chamber while I put in ANOTHER 6 dozen!

hmmm...you know....I hadn't thought of this, but the Poultry Sciences department at the UW downsized BIG time last year. I wonder if they've put the incubators they had over at SWAP...(that's the place where all the departments send their useless stuff to be sold at ridiculously low prices). I need to get Mike to check into that

Wow I had an egg blow up once...thought I was going to DIE!!!